bodypaint

At first glance, this looks like a painting of Predator’s face on a canvas, but take a closer look. It’s actually his face painted on Paul Roustan’s torso with his arms forming the hair. As he breathes in and out it makes the face come to life. He even did a second camouflaged version.

One of the things that made Anck Su Namun so interesting in The Mummy movies was her sinuous grace and the “there but not there” painted on look of her costume. Which makes this body paint cosplay so interesting.

Cosplayed by Northern Belle, with photography and body paint by ArtistiCurves, this photo shoot takes that barely there/painted on idea to the next level.

This lovely cosplay features Envy Kitty as Neytiri from Avatar. She’s used a combination of accessories and body paint to create the full affect—and the result looks like she could easily be one of the Na’vi.

These stunning images are from the 16th Annual World Bodypainting Festival held earlier this month in Austria. It featured some incredible artistry with people transformed into entirely new creatures through the use of body paint and special effects make-up.

Kitty Pryde is one of the best X-Men. Period. I love seeing costume interpretations for my favorite mutant, and this body paint version worn by Elle Cosplay just blows me away. It’s put on seamlessly and almost looks like fabric. She only needs Lockheed to make her outfit complete.

Model Evie Evangelion is featured in this Spider Woman body paint photoshoot done by Rocky Pierre Desroches. It brings the very simple and elegant costume of Julia Carpenter to life with beautiful paint and wonderful effects.

File this under cool things that are also kind of creepy. Artist Danny Quirk has done illustrations for scientific journals, but this time his pictures aren’t on paper. Instead, he’s painted images of what we look like on the inside right onto peoples’ skin using Sharpie markers and acrylic latex. His plan is to make this a 15-20 page series. He’s also done an even creepier series of images which are available in his Etsy store. They’re paintings on canvas that show people vivisecting themselves and neatly revealing their insides.

Artist JKB Fletcher has does something amazing with body paint images of superheros. He starts by sketching his idea before he paints and photographs the models himself. You’d think he’s done, but not even close. He then takes the photographs and turns them into huge canvas paintings that are worthy of display in any gallery (seriously, the image above is a painting). It’s hard to understand just how talented this guy is until you watch the video of an image coming together, from the moment he walks into the studio one morning until the finished work hangs on a wall. This is incredible.

See more artwork and the video after the break (some are slightly NSFW)…

Fans of Mass Effect will immediately recognize this gorgeous body paint cosplay as Miranda. Model Leeshe looks just amazing with nothing but carefully applied paint and an assortment of deadly weapons at her side. Her photo shoot by Joey Demarco is featured in the 15 Shades of Geek 2013 calendar which highlights beautiful body paint cosplay from every facet of geekdom.